U.S. Electrification "Partnershiph" with Tanzania

While browsing NPR, I came upon this audio news recording titled "Obama Promises Billions to Double Africa's Electricity Access" (listen here: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=197713640&m=197713651). Since my practice experience this summer will be with the Maasai Women's Development Organisation health clinic, I thought that this provoked many questions, especially since my organization serves the distant pastoral villages in Northern Tanzania.

Quite simply, Obama's campaign called "Power Africa" aims to invest $7 billion dollars to Africa in order to increase local's and businesses access to electricity, and to ultimately unleash Africa's economic potential. The reasons offered by NPR's Greg Warner are the following: 1) the "tremendous need in Africa" for street lights, keeping medicines cold, etc, 2) an advantage for the U.S. economy as the administration sees Africa as an untapped resource for businesses, and 3) to encourage green technology to be tried and implemented for clean power.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love electricity. I love being able to study on my laptop at night and have the leisure to learn about international conditions at the click of a button; to be able to connect to internet; charge my phone; use light when cooking; and everything else. And I do believe that anyone anywhere can benefit from electricity if they choose, especially entire economies in terms of the marginal increase in the possibilities for entrepreneurs and increasing internal businesses. But, just like any technology being introduced, how will this be received? How will locals feel about having to pay a utility bill for the first time? Do they even want it? Will they have a choice? What locations will be selected for electrification? Will the neglected/outskirting regions all over Africa be reached? Whether or not the concept of electrification is going to be a positive change (short and long run) can be debated by African politicians and locals, U.S. tax payers, businesses, and even students.

What I am curious to know, is which U.S. entities have an interest in this, and to whose benefit? According to Obama, this is not charity. This is business. Whose business? Well, $7 billion will be coming from the U.S. government and $9 billion will be from the private sector. The private sector including big names like General Electric and even smaller U.S. companies, all in the hope that they can expand their businesses and make money investing in Africa by including it in the global economy. The idea of imperialism is hard to avoid as I wonder how these businesses will be conducted, and if African countries' benefits will be converted to positive action to improvement or to embezzlement/corruption. Transnational business will undoubtedly seek to exploit local employees to maximize profits. So who is going to regulate conduct and actually enforce it? Will these businesses moving result in shared fortune? Or will the margin of inequality widen?

Technological solutions in the world of aid

This semester I've felt the presence of technology and the drive to solve problems with technological solutions stronger than ever. We often use the phrase "There's an app for that!" as a joke, but to be really honest, it really does feel like that sometimes. Especially after taking my mobile health technology class this semester, I feel that the options are pretty much are limitless when trying to design an innovative solution with technology for underserved communities, both locally and globally. As a 20-something going to school in the Bay Area, with the hub of technological innovation in my backyard, I get extremely excited when I hear about the latest app or mobile health solution that rolls out. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when my group for our class project decided to work on a sexual health SMS text service for local youth. But when pitching our idea in class in a small group discussion, Professor Talwalker brought up the very important question of how participatory these innovations can be. 

Technology has permeated markets everywhere. From 2010 to 2011 alone, there was an increase in mobile-cellular subscriptions by 600 million users, with most of these in developing-country markets (http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/ind/D-IND-ICTOI-2012-SUM-PDF-E.pdf). And as of 2012, 85% of US adults were reported to own a cell phone (http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Mobile-Health/Key-Findings.aspx). And that's just looking at mobile phones. Internet, tablets and other forms of technology are also being utilized. And the development projects they are being incorporated in range from health, emergency and disaster relief, community organizing, education and so much more. 

It's not that difficult to see the pull of using technological solutions. Interventionists can quite literally put aid in the hands of beneficiary communities anywhere or connect people to resources or people that they otherwise would not have access to. Disaster struck areas can be 'crowd-mapped' (www.crowdmap.com) to map out areas in crisis where resources are needed or even available to make the relief efforts more efficient and coordinated. Health screenings can be automatically administered through IVR (interactive voice response) where women are called and asked questions through an automatic voice service and women respond back by pressing keys on their phone (http://instedd.org/baby-monitor/). Cool, right? 

But what about the drawbacks to information giving and resource connecting through these means? They can be extremely impersonal and there are accompanying issues of ownership, ethics and, of course, participation. Technology use hasn't permeated global markets enough for these solutions to be introduced and implemented at a grassroots level. They're made by coders and developers of privilege and power. They make assumptions about technology use, uptake and learning curves. They even can pose a risk to the people that use them (i.e. putting these products in the hands of poorer communities can put users' safety at risk; widening existing disparities). 

There are design methods nowadays that have been formalized and are very thorough. Human-centered design (HCD) and participatory design processes are popular strategies that help innovators come up with solutions by listening to and learning from the communities in need. HCD helps balance the need, as voiced by the beneficiary community, feasibility and viability. Participatory design actively involves stakeholders in the development process. (Basically, HCD: designing FOR users and participatory design: designing WITH users.) 

But is that enough? 

Thinking about this issue took me back to our discussion of the Munro and Butt piece on 'rendering technical' in which we talked about interventions being too practical and generalized, often ignoring the nuances of the beneficiary community. All development projects and interventions as we have been discussing have recommendations and guidelines to make them more participatory and culturally sensitive, because as we all know by now, this is a never-ending struggle. With time, technology use will be even more prevalent and these issues I have discussed could be a thing of the past. But for the time being, are there extra measures we can take to make these more participatory? 

Class Infographic | Fall 2013